International

The election of Jeremy Corbyn provided the one thing that was lacking in Britain: a point of reference for the accumulated discontent and frustration of the masses. It is beginning to regenerate the Labour Party and push it to the left. That represents a mortal danger to the ruling class and they will stop at nothing to destroy it.

Last Friday, Paris was the scene of mass slaughter in which at least one hundred and twenty-nine people, mostly young kids enjoying themselves in cafes and a rock concert, were shot down in cold blood. The killers, shouting Allahu Akbar, discharged magazine after magazine, calmly reloading before killing more defenceless people as they lay helpless on the ground.

For a very long time British politics has resembled a stagnant pond. With the election of Jeremy Corbyn in a landslide victory it felt as if a huge stone had been thrown into it, making gigantic waves that have transformed the entire political landscape. But not everyone is pleased. Even before he was elected, Jeremy Corbyn faced an orchestrated campaign of vilification that in sheer viciousness and intensity has no precedent in recent British politics. Day in, day out, the public is subjected to a deafening cacophony in which the howling of the wolves is accompanied by the snarling of the dogs and the hissing of the snakes.

Reactionary Islamic fundamentalist terrorism has struck again last night in a co-ordinated attack on different sites in Paris leaving over 128 dead and more than 100 severely injured. This is a wholly reactionary attack against ordinary working people, many of them youth, enjoying a night out in restaurants, concert halls and a football stadium. We condemn the murderous gang which carried out these attacks and we express our solidarity with the people of Paris.

The International Monetary Fund has been forced, not only to repeatedly downgrade its growth forecasts, but to now predict a fall in World GDP in dollar terms, the first since 2009. This is a reflection of the crisis-ridden world we are in.

The IMF economists have been repeatedly forced to eat their words as the world economy, supposedly in its seventh year of “recovery”, has leaned from one crisis to another. The world slump of 2008-9 was a defining moment. It ushered in a protracted crisis, described by Lawrence Summers, the former US Treasury Secretary, as “secular stagnation”.